In an African city in secession land tourists of all languages and nationalities. They have only one desire: to make a fortune by exploiting the mineral wealth of the country. They work during the day in mining concession and, as soon as night falls, they go out to get drunk, dance, eat and abandon themselves in Tram 83, the only night-club of the city, the den of all the outlaws.

Lucien, a professional writer, fleeing the exactions and the censorship, finds refuge in the city thanks to Requiem, a friend. Requiem lives mainly on theft and on swindle while Lucien only thinks of writing and living honestly. Around them gravitate gangsters and young girls, retired or runaway men, profit-seeking tourists and federal agents of a non-existent State.

Tram 83 plunges the reader into the atmosphere of a gold rush as cynical as, it is comic and colourfully exotic. It’s an observation of human relationships in a world that has become a global village, an African-rhapsody novel hammered by rhythms of jazz.

Winner of the PEN Translates Award from English PEN in association with Arts Council England, 2015

Winner of a French Voices Award from the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the US, 2014

Meet the author

Fiston Mwanza Mujila was born in 1981 in Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of Congo, where he went to a Catholic school before studying Literature and Human Sciences at Lubumbashi University. He now lives in Graz, Austria, and is pursuing a PhD in Romanc …

Reviews

“A novel of mind-blowing, poetic beauty.” — Point Magazine

“Q: What if Césaire beat Houellebecq at his own game? A: Tram 83.”— Dustin Kurtz

“Tram 83 isn’t for the faint of heart, but rather, it’s for those that have a sense of humor, an interest in seedy underbellies, and a willingness to, at times, feel a little lost in the haze of biblical imagery, flippant debauchery, free sex, and anarchy. Ezra Pound would be proud; Mujila ‘made it new.’” — Josh Cook, Foreword Reviews

“Talk about verve — and vivre: Fiston Mwanza Mujila’s Tram 83 introduces a rousing, remarkable new voice to this world, surely in its original French, most definitely in Roland Glasser’s superb translation. This book has drive and force and movement, it has hops and chops. It has voices!” — Rick Simonson, Elliott Bay Book Company (Seattle, WA)

“I was totally into the wild formal thug-haunted adventurousness of Tram 83.” — Forrest Gander, author of The Trace

“Through observation and conversation, the reader is exposed to the economic boom and cultural bust of contemporary Africa in search of what the future holds for human relationships and survival in a place where tradition and personal histories are quickly being swept under the rug by global forces. Mujila captures chaos in a hypnotic free-jazz rhythm that is so rarely found in novels of this scope.” — Kevin Elliott, 57th Street Books (Chicago, IL)

“Tram 83 reads like a modern, twisted The Great Gatsby. …An unaffected view of humanity that is at once repulsive, hilarious, and oddly uplifting. …The novel, like the nightclub, is eccentric and somewhat disturbing, yet inclusive and universally appealing.” — Caitlin Thomas, Three Percent

“One of the more exciting discoveries of the fall … Frenetic, flamboyant, and intense, there are touches of Hieronymus Bosch. An insolent, globe-trotting Bosch, who would have read Gabriel García Márquez and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.” — Le Monde

“Watch out for this blazing comet! Tram 83 will sweep you off your feet like a Coltrane number, and never put you down again.” — Rolling Stone (France)

“Mujila has invented “locomotive literature,” and the genre of the “stage-tale,” making his debut novel the manifesto for a convulsive poetic prose, a cross between Aimé Césaire and Boris Vian.”— Le Nouvel Observateur